Watch a cooking show from the 80s starring Jeremiah Tower

This morning, Jeremiah Tower tweeted a link to a fabulous food television segment from 1989’s BBC show Floyd’s American Pie. The video is above.

In it, Keith Floyd visits San Francisco, and these three segments take him to Chinatown, then to Stars with Tower and finally, to the Marin cliffs overlooking the bridge (where for some reason, there is a shirtless man there as well, pictured to the right).

A few things of note here.

In terms of restaurant interest, the most notable bit is obviously the Stars one, particularly now that the old Stars space has reopened as Maestro. Tower cooks two types of whole prawns, plated with artichoke hearts, sweet 100s cherry tomatoes, fava beans (when they were still called broad beans), and a saffron sauce.

There’s also a particularly telling exchange about how Stars fit in with the city at the time:

Floyd: Have you had trouble in leading your customers, or the American public, in accepting your sort of food that you like to cook? Are they willing to come along?

Tower: It’s a question, I think, both of an adventure and intimidation. I’m sure there are some people out there who would send it back, but most of the people are willing to try something new, and that’s why they come here.

It’s a reminder that both food television and the dining world have come a long way.